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When were the Vedas composed and passed down orally?

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Painting depicting Hindu gods Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma with Ganesha standing and paying homage to Mahadevi, who is seated on a lotus and playing a stringed instrument. — Hinduism Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma (left to right) pay homage to Mahadevi (the great goddess, in white in the form of Saraswati), attended by the elephant-headed deity Ganesha, in a painting dated c. 1750.

The Vedas were composed and transmitted orally over a period of approximately 10 centuries, generally dated from about 1500 to 500 BCE.1

The Rigveda, which is considered the earliest of these sacred texts, was composed in an archaic form of Sanskrit around 1500 BCE. While the entire Vedic corpus—including the Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads—was preserved through oral tradition, the Rigveda specifically was not written down until approximately 300 BCE.2345

This oral tradition remains significant today, as several of these works continue to be recited with precise subtleties of intonation and rhythm that have been passed down since the early days of Vedic religion in India.45